


With Only A Name

by TanteiKID13



Series: Influence [4]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: But it's Doctor Who, Gen, Harry Potter meets the Doctor twice, He doesn't particularly like him either time, Tags - Freeform, There's a bit of implied time travel, so that's par for course
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-26
Updated: 2014-02-26
Packaged: 2018-01-13 20:42:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1240153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TanteiKID13/pseuds/TanteiKID13
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry Potter has met the Doctor. He's not sure that's a good thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	With Only A Name

Harry Potter meets the Doctor once during the war and once after it. 

 

Harry Potter is on the run and wearing a locket when he runs into a man on the street. "Sorry," he says, wondering why the man had fallen even as he helps the man up. It's not as if Harry is that solidly built. "Sorry," he says again once the man is on his feet. 

"You're being poisoned, you know?" the man asks and it is such an odd statement that Harry stops and looks at the man despite his instincts telling him that he should have been running the second poison was mentioned. He feels that if the man had wanted to kill him, the man wouldn't have mentioned poison at all. 

"Am I?" Harry asks, the words coming out a bit sharper than intended. The man smiles at him, teeth like a military cemetery; Harry wonders when he began making comparisons like that. 

"I suppose it's necessary," the man says, his smile softer than it was a moment ago but no less out of place. "In the end, Voldemort will be gone and you will know what it is to die."

"Excuse me," Harry tells the man, "but who are you?" His tone borders on rude, but, really, who the hell gives you vague predictions about your own death in the middle of the street? Someone who is even more rude than you, that’s who.

The man gives him a measuring look and Harry is abruptly reminded of the picture he makes, threadbare clothing covering him and random cuts and dirt littering the skin that is exposed. He wonders the sort of conclusions this man draws about him, wonders if all the man sees is what is there: a scared teenager who doesn't quite know what he's doing.

Harry doesn't think the man is quite satisfied by what he sees, but he answers, which is the important bit. "I'm probably the only living person Voldemort hates more than you. I'm the Doctor."

The Doctor ignores Harry calling after him as he walks away and it doesn't occur to Harry to go after the man until he hears a screeching noise and by that point it doesn't matter as when he rounds the corner the man went around, he sees no sign of the man. 

When Neville Longbottom mentions a ghost of Hogwarts, he briefly thinks of an odd man he met in the street months ago. He smiles at Neville because perhaps he doesn't want to know, and Neville smiles back. 

Either way, he goes to the Room of Hidden Things and as it burns he thinks, ' _I will know what it is to die._ '

He sees Severus Snape die and, as he comes out of the Pensieve, he thinks, ' _I will know what it is to die, and I will make sure Voldemort knows too._ ' It is not this thought that carries him through the castle or the ground or the forest, but it is this thought that makes him take the first step toward the end, and perhaps that's what is important. 

As he stands before Voldemort, he thinks perhaps it is important to say something, as if he is a hero in a book or some other such nonsense, even though he's just a scared teenage boy who is about to die; allowing himself to pretend to be a hero is so much nicer. So, he thinks of a man who he met in the street and says, "I met a man months ago, and he told me I would know what it was to die."

"What a wise man," the Dark Lord says, and Lestrange cackles because she knows what will happen soon (except she doesn't). 

Harry isn't quite done. "He said his name was the Doctor," and he sees a rage fueled by insanity come across Voldemort’s face that Harry himself has never inspired and wonders what the man had done to get that expression to appear at just the mention of his name. This is his last thought before the Killing Curse hits him. 

He sees a glimpse of the odd man as he slips into the Great Hall underneath his invisibility cloak, but the man is walking toward the middle of the fight and all he can hear in the short exchange that follows is the scream of rage that precedes it all, and he wonders at the man’s ability to inspire that much hatred in Voldemort.

The man is walking away soon enough and Harry steps forward not too long after, and it is all very dramatic. He doesn't even notice the Doctor has slipped away until after they are mourning the dead and he does not see the man anywhere. It doesn't matter though.

 

 

The Doctor is a thought that comes to him occasionally, sometimes when he can’t sleep at night and sometimes when he is at work and sometimes when he is with Ron and Hermione and really, the thought has occurred everywhere he has ever been since then.

However, right now is what is important and right now the Doctor is not the mysterious figure in his memory but a man walking down a Muggle street in London that Harry turns onto because he needs to clear his head.

“Doctor,” he says, the word barely audible, but the man looks up and directly at him, pausing where he stands rather than approaching him. The gap is a couple of feet, which should feel odd when conversing with a person, but somehow manages to avoid that. 

“Harry Potter,” the Doctor says, and there is something warm in that tone and that smile that hadn't been there the last time. “An honor to meet you, you understand, although I suppose you've already met me.”

Harry blinks and thinks of the time turner from third year and dismisses that thought just as quickly. “Yeah. You don’t remember?” he asks.

The Doctor does a funny half shrug before answering. “I remember when I meet celebrities.”

Harry accepts that because it isn't until later that he realizes that wasn't quite the answer he was looking for. “How did you know we would win? You said that Voldemort would die and that I would know what it was to die. How could you possibly-”

The Doctor smiles at him as he speaks, but he doesn't wait for him to finish. “Certain things are just meant to happen. You understand?” 

The smile morphs into something that approaches enigmatic. Well, it would if Harry were the sort of person to describe a smile as enigmatic. Instead, Harry is the type of person who sees the weight in the smile and the secrets locked behind it, and he thinks perhaps drawing this man’s attention is not the wisest thing he has ever done. This man talks about the present as if he does not remember the past, and it grates at him. The Doctor’s eyes have stayed fixed on Harry, and there is no wavering there. He wonders if this is the sort of man who thinks in absolutes. 

The silence has stretched too long, but Harry is loathe to break it. He doesn't tend to like what this man has to say.

What does he think of destiny? As a child, he would have laughed at the concept, but then the prophecy had been unveiled and it had never occurred to him to doubt it as an absolute truth until Voldemort was already dead and by then it had been far too late to change anything.

He has thought at length about what would have happened if he had left like so many had speculated he had while he had been hunting Horcruxes.

He wouldn't have, prophecy or not, but he wonders.

Harry Potter doesn't know how he feels about Divination anymore, but he nods. Really, he supposes that none of his questions matter because the war is done and Voldemort is gone and the Wizarding World is moving on once again.

Still, Harry has always been a curious kid, and the urge to investigate things has only gotten stronger since his first year when he and his two friends had decided that they had to know what was hidden in their school. It is this urge that makes him ask after the silence stretches a few moments too long and the Doctor is turning away. “What did you do to him?” he asks the man whose name is not a name.

"I made him," the Doctor says, and Harry thinks, ' _Doctor Frankenstein_ ,’ as the Doctor walks away. He doesn't check around the corner this time, and he hears the screeching again as he turns back onto the main street because even adoring followers were more pleasant to deal with than the Doctor.

**Author's Note:**

> Part of this was written while a bit sleepy and that part was inserted into the middle, so feel free to tell me if it feels disjointed or confusing.
> 
> I'm thinking about expanding away from the war and having the Doctor interact with other characters outside of that context, but I'm not sure if that will happen, so tell me if you would enjoy seeing more in this 'verse.
> 
> Also, there was a small reference to Welcome to Night Vale in this section.
> 
> Hope you liked it!


End file.
